The Multicore Association names Cavium Networks' Rajan Goyal as Chair of the Virtualization Working Group

November 30, 2010, Mountain View CA - Cavium Networks (NASDAQ: CAVM) announced today that it has joined the Multicore Association (MCA), an industry-wide initiative to drive standardization and promote interoperability among providers and users of multicore processor hardware and software. In addition, the Multicore Association, a global non-profit organization focused on developing standards that help speed time-to-market for products involving multicore implementations, announced the appointment of Cavium Networks' Distinguished Engineer Rajan Goyal as Co-Chair of the MCA's Multicore Virtualization Working Group. Goyal joins Surender Kumar of Nokia Siemens Networks, who has been chairing this working group for the prior two years. Through this leadership role in the MCA, its existing leadership of the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) Networking Subcommittee, and its own Partnership to Accelerate Customer End-solutions (PACE) ecosystem, Cavium Networks continues to drive multi-core technology evolution and deployment across the industry. In addition, customers rank Cavium Networks as the #1 multicore processor supplier, as shown in the recently-published Heavy Ready Report "TEMs Rate Multicore & Network Processor Suppliers"; the complete report can be purchased online from www.heavyreading.com/commchip.

"The Multicore Association has led the charge to standardize on approaches to accelerate the adoption of embedded multicore processors. Founded in 2005, and now with more than 30 working group members and Tier-1 board members that include Huawei, NSN, Freescale, and Intel, the MCA has begun to provide key specifications to enable portability and scalability in customer applications," said Markus Levy, President of the Multicore Association. "We are very pleased that Cavium Networks is also dedicated to driving this industry-wide multicore initiative. Their industry knowledge will contribute greatly to future MCA strategy."

"I look forward to working closely with the Multicore Association," said Rajan Goyal, Distinguished Engineer, Cavium Networks. "With its long track record, the MCA has been the de facto leader in the multicore industry, and together we will set the pace in the future. The depth and breadth of the MCA membership provides the industry expertise and resources to define and advance relevant multicore initiatives for years to come. As a new Cavium PACE member, the MCA can leverage our dynamic and diverse ecosystem to accelerate its multicore hardware and software standardization mission."

"Virtualization is becoming increasingly important in networking equipment design, but standards are needed to allow designers to leverage applications and middleware across different virtualization solutions," commented Linley Gwennap, principal analyst of The Linley Group. "I applaud Cavium Networks' involvement in the standardization efforts of the Multicore Association. In particular, combining a networking processor vendor and a networking equipment OEM as co-chairs of this working group should facilitate a comprehensive standard."

Cavium Networks is continuing its tradition of multicore industry leadership; CTO and Corporate VP of Software, Muhammad Raghib Hussain was elected chair of the Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC) Networking Subcommittee in 2007. EEMBC develops benchmark software to help designers select the right embedded processors for their systems. Through Hussain's leadership, the industry association has developed ETCPBench, a benchmark suite to measure TCP/IP performance and conformance for platforms -- from micro-controllers to high-end processors.

Both the MCA and EEMBC are now members of the Cavium PACE partner program, which was launched in 2008. Now the industry's most comprehensive and mature embedded multicore ecosystem with more than 90 world-class technology members, the PACE program provides a stable development platform for Cavium customers. Key PACE members Green Hills, MontaVista and Wind River provide standard operating system support for Cavium multicore processors. With compatible software and hardware development tools, and software stack technology ready and available for Cavium multicore processors, customers get to market quickly with lower development risk. The broad range of PACE board and appliance partners also offers a complete variety of off-the-shelf hardware choices.